It is commonly understood that in order to increase an individual's comfort and reduce neck and back strain during resting time, the vertebrae of the individual's spine should be in neutral alignment during sleep. If a pillow provides neck support that is too high or too low, the vertebrae in the neck will be out of alignment with the vertebrae in the rest of the spine. This may reduce the restfulness of the individual's sleep and can aggravate neck and back problems. The level of neck support required for an individual can vary according to body size and sleeping position. Accordingly, it is desirable to have an adjustable neck support which can be quickly and easily adjusted by the individual while lying down. It is also desirable for the pillow to distribute the body weight of the individual to decrease compression on compression points. These features can increase comfort levels, and reduce neck and back strain.
One of the approaches to solving this problem was the development of visco-elastic foam, preformed into an orthopedically designed contour pillow that provided improved support for a user's head and neck. However, this technology suffers from at least two limitations. First, because the ideal level of neck support varies depending on the user's body size and sleeping position, a pre-formed visco-elastic pillow will not provide adequate neck support for all users in all sleeping positions. Secondly, because the visco-elastic foam molds to the individual, the support in the neck region may not be sufficiently firm.
Accordingly, there is still a need for an ergonomic pillow that allows neck support, which can be custom-adjusted to suit the user's individual needs and sleeping patterns. Still further there is a need for an ergonomic pillow that is simple to produce and is affordable.